I so agree with both of you. The film's period setting served as an excuse for demeaning and degrading all of the female characters, rather than a reason for it. It wasn't merely the fact that three of the four main females either were sex workers or pretended to be for plot purposes, but that all of them suffered the diminution of their status from the comics.

Emma, as much as I despise her, is much stronger and more intelligent than she was portrayed in X:FC. Angel Salvadore was never a stripper, as far as I recall, nor was she a villain. And poor Moira MacTaggert suffered the greatest indignity of all. Far from being the brilliant geneticist she was in the comics, Moira was demoted to being a CIA agent who was berated, ignored and finally discarded by both her bosses and Charles. Only Raven avoided such open degradation, though in the end she betrayed her supposedly beloved, critically-wounded brother without so much as a backward glance for a man she barely knew.

The problem with the treatment of women in X:FC is not that they were merely subjected to the sexism of the 60s, but that they were so diminished in stature and power. There is no reason why Emma and Moira couldn't have been portrayed as the intelligent, successful women they are in the comics. As a geneticist, Moira would have been a more relevant and useful character in Charles' attempts to bridge the gap between mutants and fearful humans. Emma could have been even sexier and more dangerous if portrayed as a powerful woman who used her sexuality in more subtle and manipulative ways. The culture of the time was awash in portrayals of women who used seduction and betrayal to get what they wanted and hold power over men. She could have been an elegant and sophisticated seductress who used her psychic power a la the Stepford Cuckoos as a means of influence and control. Instead, she herself was used by Shaw like a very blunt instrument, utilizing her body for control instead of her mind.

The writers of that film missed so many opportunities to make it into a richer and more interesting take on the time period and the characters. The film's production staff didn't even do a good job of recreating the distinctive clothing, hairstyles and architecture of the 60s, which would have done a lot to set the tone for it. They could have played up the similarities between the mutants' drive for acceptance and the Civil Rights Movement that was swinging into high gear early in the decade. That would have given the film some heft and cultural relevance and perhaps provided it with the emotional core it was missing. The movie simply did not feel as if it portrayed the period in which it was set accurately at all, which made it a disappointment to me over and above the many glaring weaknesses of its plot and dialog.

Interesting read. I gotta agree with most of it.

XM:FC never quite registered with me for many reasons...those you list being some of them.

__________________Uplift the entire genre instead of attempting to transcend it~T"Challa